It had been less than seven years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane, but already kids gathered in after school clubs learning to build their own working models.

The boy inventor is not hindered by patent restrictions of any kind. He is free to copy any model he sees fit, and the cheapness of the material brings such experimenting within the reach of all. Every meet or tournament of the boy aviators serves to bring out many new models. A large proportion of these are, of course, futile, but each serves to bring the youthful inventors a step nearer to the goal.

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What is this site?

Every week, I post the most interesting articles from the New York Times Sunday Magazine from exactly 100 years ago, with a little bit of commentary or context. See the About Page for more info.

Important Note

This website is in no way affiliated with the New York Times. All of their articles posted here were originally published before January 1, 1923 and so are in the public domain. More info available in this brochure (pdf) from the US Copyright Office.

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Read the Slate article

On the first anniversary of this site, I wrote an article for Slate.com about the New York Times Sunday Magazine of 100 years ago. You can read the whole thing on their website. Don't forget to view the slideshow while you're there.